People are rediscovering the thrifty practices with which their parents would
have been familiar – and finding that they can halve their grocery bills as
a result.

Rising food bills are squeezing many families' budgets but Your Money readers have proved that it is not difficult to cut the cost of shopping in half.

Necessity is the mother of invention and the credit crisis is prompting many people to rediscover thrifty practices with which their parents would have been familiar, even if they fell from favour in the go-go years of the consumer credit boom.

According to the comparison website MySupermarket.com, typical families will spend £1,000 more on groceries this year than they did last year, unless they make an effort not to do so. We followed the progress of two families – one in Wales, the other in London – who changed their shopping habits over several weeks to see how much money they could save and the useful tips they learned along the way.

The Welsh family whose savings paid for a holiday in Spain

Kelly Parry, 27, a hairstylist from Brecon, decided to ditch her weekly food trip in favour of a fortnightly shop.

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This proved an effective way to avoid impulse buys and forced her to plan ahead. She started "stretching" her food shopping six months ago when her weekly grocery bill became too high. She is married and has a baby girl, aged one, and a teenage daughter.

She said: "We buy food in Asda, as we both work full time, we live off frozen food and use up what's in the freezer. I know we are supposed to eat healthily, but frozen food lasts longer."

Talking about the rising cost of food, she added: "It's so expensive we can't afford to chuck it away. It takes us 25 minutes to drive to the supermarket to go food shopping and the price of petrol is going up."

She wanted to see if she could stretch her family's food shopping to last three weeks.

"I made fresh food such as a shepherd's pie, which we ate with chips, and I froze the other half for another time. I also froze two loaves of bread a week as this lasts longer. I also looked out for bargains such as three for two offers or buying two items for £5 on meat products and made my own curry.

"I'm not bothered about cake and chocolate but my 14- year-old, Danielle, can be a fussy eater. If we didn't have kids, we could budget without chocolate and crisps. I'm not fussed about breakfast, but because of the kids, I have got to have food there. You've got to have a certain amount of food in the freezer when you have kids.

"It was tricky trying to stretch it to three weeks. By Wednesday in the last week, we were already on leftovers and we were not left with a great deal. We spent £30 buying milk, tea, sugar, the odd can of beans and potatoes and extra ingredients to go with main meals. We had to go out and buy more as there was nothing left for making meals before the next big shop."

Setting out to buy sufficient food for three weeks, she brought the cost of her average weekly shop down from £107 to £46, saving an average of £61 a week. She said: "We still go to Asda but only once a month if we need to. If we have to top up on bread or milk, we go to Morrisons. Because of the price of food, it's hard to make it last and with petrol on top, that's why we only go once a month. We have to stretch, the only thing not going up is the wages.

"When we first tried to stretch, we used to buy all the offers, but we still had to top up to make a meal. Now we're more organised with meals and add more variety, like taking a stir fry for lunch, or making a sausage casserole."

The family do admit they are making fewer savings now as they have to top up more often but what they do save goes into a holiday fund. The effort to cut costs has really paid off, enabling her family to enjoy a week-long holiday in Ibiza.

She added: "Until we started stretching the pounds, we didn't think about how we shopped. We used to go around the supermarket and grabbed whatever we fancied off the shelf. I didn't think about it. Everyone likes the nice things – but when you have a family of four, it's worth doing to make a saving."

Londoners who learnt to live off the larder

Anne Morgan, 66, is a part-time teacher from London who normally does her family's food shopping at Waitrose or online at Ocado. Married, she has three grown-up children, two of whom live at home. She has recently started to notice the effects of food inflation.

"I've noticed that meat isn't as cheap as it was and the cost of dairy has gone up. I have a son living away from home and I help him out. If we still had a mortgage, the credit crunch would have affected us more."

She switched supermarkets to see how much money she could save: "I went to Sainsbury's where I bought a lot of the basics, such as mince meat for spaghetti bolognese, Quorn for my vegetarian son, free range eggs and orange juice which was reduced in price. I also bought ingredients to make a fruit cake which I made in advance for a friend's birthday.

"I always find that supermarket vegetables are expensive and have recently gone up in price, so I buy them at the local green grocer and the market which is cheaper. Planning my meals helped to save money. For the spaghetti bolognese, we had a vegetarian version for my son and I used the leftover meat sauce to make stuffed pancakes.

"Spending £6 on meat is a lot but it did get us three meals. I also used a lot of my store cupboard ingredients as fillings for baked potatoes which is an inexpensive meal. We have a bread machine and I made three loaves during the week. It takes six hours to make bread overnight but the quick version is ready in three hours.

''Bread machines cost a lot, so it takes a lot of loaves to save money."

She confesses that she likes to buy "posh desserts" from Marks & Spencer but for the second week she switched to budget puddings and home baking instead: "We bought a berry cheesecake in Sainsbury's which had more than a £1 off, which was jolly nice.

"There were lots of apples in the garden, so I cooked them and made apple crumble. As I had a lot of puff pastry I also made two apple pies which cost about £1 to make."

During the second week Anne compared prices in three different supermarkets and also went to a budget chain in her hunt for bargains: "I went to Lidl for jam as they are cheaper than other supermarkets, at least half what you pay in any other supermarket.

"I go because you can get similar products for less, such as olive oil. I also stocked up on unsalted butter which I use for making cakes so I bought this in bulk. The family's food bill for the first week came to a total of £62, which included shopping in Waitrose and buying Marks & Spencer puddings.

By using up store cupboard ingredients and switching supermarkets in the second week, she only spent £31 and halved the cost of her weekly shop.

But how did Anne and her family react to the change in food? Anne said: "My daughter Sarah did say that she could get used to the change, if it meant eating more half price cheesecake. It made me realise how much extra money you can spend on things.

"When you're not thinking about the money, you can spend a lot. The hardest part was checking prices between stores. It's something my mum used to do, going from shop to shop, knowing where was cheaper.

"A lot of her generation did this, but it's difficult to do when you're short of time."